Topic: "Stripped" SME Box for NAS - Store Backup Files?

[rf131]

Hi There,

I'm considering using a stripped-down (unnecessary items removed) install of SME to use as place for backup savesets for my server.  My primary is only a file server at the present.  I think it is so cool to have a simple setup in less than 25 minutes, and just putting in an ibay for the backup savesets seems to make sense to me.

I would like to have a GUI available for scheduling and restoring.  Being SME, this may be best done with some web pages served by Apache, unless someone has a good-quality contrib.  I have noticed some attractive for-cost products like BackupEdge, but would be interested in any success stories using open source products.

There is a noticeable lack of open source products (let me know if I missed something) that can provide a GUI interface or able to connect to a NAS... they only like tape products.

I know there is some WebMin stuff, but it doesn't look like they have really matured.

If anyone has any experience resolving this your response is greatly appreciated.  I just can't see putting a lot of money into a backup device.  I'll go with a $35 hot-swap removable case for the second drive and have my client swap it out every week.

If not, perhaps I can work through this and post how I did it.

Thanks!

[Arnie]

Check out this thread :

http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=28395.0

Not really what you want, but might be easier.

[rf131]

Thanks, Arnie.

I did see this thread, but forgot about it.  A definite possibility...

Questions:
1.  Reliability.  Is a USB drive a viable option for 6.0.1?  I remember seeing some threads about some possible issues with corruption.
2.  Hot-Swap.  Can I get a USB drive that could be plugged and unplugged while the system is up?  Can an automount task be "looking" to mount the drive when it appears?  Can the backup task perform a post umount when finished?
3.  Backuppc.  I did find backuppc on the threads, and it looks like it might be a potential fit.  Backing up the My Documents folder for the clients and the server (w/o the backup partition) might be the way to go.

If I could pull this off, I could get a few of the USB drives and have my client swap them out every so often.

Any feedback from the community is greatly appreciated.

Kevin

[Arnie]

As I mentioned in the above thread, corruption is a possibility, but by using the rate-limiting option of rsync (I have it set to 3.5MB/s, just pulled that number out of my a$$), I have not had a corrupted hard disk in over a year with nightly backups. I guess if you can hold out for SME7 to go gold, all of those USB issues should be fixed.

I have not investigated automount, as I leave the USB drive mounted at all times so I can restore files if needed. However, there are no problems plugging and unplugging USB devices while the system is powered up, as long as you unmount the disks before you remove them. There should be no problems with having your backup script unmount the drives after a backup.

Maybe you could write a server-manager panel to mount and unmount the drives. I haven't tried this because I don't need it and I haven't a clue about how to do it on SME. Writing the event and action scripts is simple enough, but how do you integrate that with a manager panel? Maybe someone out there with knowledge on how to it could do us a favor and give us a short tutorial?

[rf131]

Thanks for the valuable information Arnie.

What backup application do you use?  rsync?  I'm still open for ideas, especially since you are backing up to disk.

The text about the rate limiting did come back to me after reading your post.

A panel to mount and unmount drives would be nice, but not an absolute requirement.  I guess that comes down to really extending the system to those not as comfortable with command line.  Anytime you can put a feature in a panel that is a plus.  There really should be a balance to what you place in the server-manager vs. requiring some command line knowledge.

Something like this would help to get your feet wet with scripting and such.

Another really cool thing would be to have an external enclosure with a button like the Maxtor one-touch, and add a sigevent to fire when the button is pressed that would umount the drive.  I have seen some threads elsewhere for Fedora where they are looking for the button press that triggers some sort of event.  The benefit here is that all my client has to do is go into the server room, press the button, and wait about 30 seconds for the drive to spin down, then swap drives.  The new drive would of course be automounted and available for the next backup job.

OK, you kernel guys, any takers?  Any ideas how to do this?

Cheers,
Kevin